XEARA Blog
Archive for the ‘General’ Category
11 New Year’s resolutions for PR and marketing professionals
Good Article Below -
As we prepare to ring in the new year, let’s take a few minutes to reflect on what’s most important as a marketer or PR practitioner, particularly as the media landscape continues to evolve.
Below are some reminders and/or resolutions related to our practice. These are simple rules. And the best part: they’re fairly easy to incorporate into working life, yet as guiding principals can make a big difference.
Resolve to be a better writer—in 140 characters or less. In an age of tweeting, being succinct is key and helps in making your content viral.
Resolve to think outside the confines of “traditional” PR. Instead of relying on an age-old press release, ask if a topic is better suited to a blog or social media post.
Resolve to know your audience. “Beats” are fluid in these days of the continuous news cycle. Know your audience and their of-the-moment interests. Resolve to check your contacts’ latest posts and tweets before reaching out with an idea or topic.
Resolve to be a storyteller. Some media deal in straight facts and figures; others paint with a different brush. Don’t bore with market potential for a new widget if that’s not their bag; instead tell them what they want to hear, which typically boils down to how it will impact their reader’s life.
Resolve to speak measurement upfront, not when asked by the client. What does the program, strategy or tactic you’re suggesting really do to impact the bottom line? If you can’t answer that question, both qualitatively and quantitatively, then perhaps it’s not the great idea you thought it was.
Resolve to be SEO friendly. Why make it hard to find the product or messages you’re trying to convey? Think of keywords that matter and use them in your blog, release and outreach so they can get crawled and drive traffic.
Resolve to be more visual. If a picture is worth 1,000 words then why not? Multimedia is the new text; incorporating photos and video makes a story more impactful.
Resolve to stay ahead of the game. This is one of the hardest challenges in PR. As fires, last-minute deadlines and “urgent” requests fly into the inbox hour by hour, it’s important to dedicate a portion of the day to ensure you’re staying ahead—or at a minimum on track—of your regularly scheduled program.
Resolve to slow it down and clean up your act. In this age of short, snippy emails and social media postings, it’s easy to post quantity over quality. Before you hit “send” take a second (or even third) look. It pays not to be sloppy.
Resolve to clear your head. When the going gets tough, the tough can get stressed. And what good does a foggy, frenetic brain do when push comes to shove? Little. There’s something to be said about the five-minute break. Try it. You’ll be better at your job because of it.
Resolve to give good counsel. Tell your boss or client(s) what they need to hear, not what they want to hear. This can sometimes be intimidating, but it’s important, and only right. We’ve all been there—there’s an expectation that PR will simply take orders—but you know in your gut the effort at hand will net nothing but peeved media and bloggers and worse, backlash that could damage several reputations, both the company and yours.
Merry Christmas – 2011
God Bless All!
And may we all pray for Peace in our World!
Weekly Internet Marketing Tip – The Buying Cycle & Long Tail Keywords
Understanding The Buying Cycle
If you understand the buying cycle, then you will know where to focus your marketing dollars.
The Buying Cycle refers to the process that most people go through before they make a purchase.
- Discovery : The person discovers a new product or concept that interests them. Example: Digital Cameras – you could not make a profit buying these keywords in Google PPC, but you could build SEO Content on your website targeting those keywords.
- Research : Now they perform research to learn about their options. Example: Canon Digital Camera – you might be able to make a profit on PPC, but this is still best suited for SEO Content.
- Buy : With all research accomplished, the person is now shopping to buy. Example: Canon Rebel Digital Camera – this is a perfect Long Tail Keyword to not only build SEO Content for, but to purchase on a Google PPC Campaign.
Long Tail Keywords are multiple keword phrases. The more keywords a person uses in a search on Google, the closer they are to making a purchase. When you build SEO Content based upon a few chosen keywords, you always want to include variations of those keywords in the content – synonyms, plurals, etc.. PPC Campaigns are also most profitable when you focus most of your attention on these keywords.
If you would like help or would like us to do this for you, please feel free to contact me at 214-549-8246.
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Need Business Contacts & Referrals?
For those in the DFW area, I highly recommend attending the North Texas Networking Group on Tuesdays. They meet at On The Border in Lewisville, TX at Corporate Dr and I35. The time is 11:30 – 1:00, every Tuesday lunch.
You will not find a finer group of people interested in helping each other grow their businesses.
Weekly Internet Marketing Tip – Google Insights / Keyword Tool
Google Keyword and Website Research Tools
As you plan out your website, blogging, and social strategies, wouldn’t it be nice to know which keywords and keyword phrases are the correct ones to use and build upon?
Google Insights is a tool that provides you the ability to research keywords, and keyword phrases. This is critical when researching your website content or PPC (pay per click) strategy.
It even has the ability to show you your competitor’s keywords by using their url instead of searching keywords only.
Google Keyword Tool (found inside the Google Adwords account) provides you the top 800 keyword phrases and the number of times they are searched on Google.
Although with both, the numbers are not exact, there is enough information to provide relative analysis to aid in your decisions. I use both when building out the keywords and keyword phrases for both the content on a website and blog, as well as helping to build out the keywords on a PPC campaign.
There are other keyword research tools on the net, and they can provide you some really good information. But with Google controlling over 70% of the search market, it only makes sense to use their tools if you are trying to gain ground in their results.
If you would like help or would like us to do this for you, please feel free to contact me at 214-549-8246.
Client Referral:
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The Sales Cycle
An understanding of this could save you thousands of dollars in promoting and advertising your business with online marketing methods.
Unless someone is motivated to buy through an impulse buying decision, people generally come to a buying decision for a product or service with a 3 step process.
D.B., CEO / President
